Portland Tribune: It’s common knowledge around the NBA. The Trail Blazers had the opportunity in February before the trading deadline to divest themselves of two players with crippling contracts — one of them a team cancer and the other an almost chronic denizen of the injured list — and didn’t make the deal.
One NBA general manager said this week, “I wondered why (Blazer General Manager) John Nash didn’t trade Darius Miles when he had the chance.”
Apparently, it was because owner Paul Allen couldn’t shake his inexplicable love affair with Miles. It was Allen who vetoed the deal, one that would have sent the lackadaisical Miles and oft-injured center Theo Ratliff to the New York Knicks for Penny Hardaway — whose monster contract would expire after this season — and the first-round draft pick of the San Antonio Spurs.
That one was a no-brainer. It was like taking candy from a baby. But Allen, along with former coach Maurice Cheeks, was responsible for Miles’ signing a long-term, above-market-value contract with the team in the first place, and he apparently wasn’t ready to part company with him.
Nash, said by people in the Blazer office to be crestfallen when he couldn’t make the deal, refused to comment on the proposed trade Wednesday night.
